Kelty

All the dogs that I am writing about are not dead. I really don't want my dog blogs to turn into obituaries. In all probability, Kelty, the dog in this picture, has gone over that rainbow bridge, but I don't know for sure so this one doesn't have to end with me in tears, talking to his human - who I only saw once in all the years I visited Kelty.

Kelty was a Chow or else part husky. He was a big boy (a couch of a dog, as my daughter would have called him) and when my friend Ron and I knew him, he was already 14 years old. He lived along our morning 6 mile route, in a nice big house, with a friendly gold kitty (you can see her in the background) who I never got to know mainly because she didn't have a tag around her neck (which is how we got to know the dog names) but also because cats don't want to be known like dogs do. Cats don't really seem to need the social interaction of random runners passing by. And they have no use for milkbones.

As was our habit with many dogs, Ron, Jack my dog, and I would stop, greet him, and give him a milk bone or two - he was a big boy. But first we would make him give us "five". Sometimes we would find him a block from his house and he would see us and try to run back to his house with us. He must have weighed over 100 pounds so it wasn't easy for him to keep up, but I guess he had to put on a show for Jack. Later I learned from some of my friends who lived in that area that Kelty was well known in the hood and showed up at a lot of places for treats. My kids said they would see him at the Jr. High school trying to get treats from the kids and he would even wander up a block to the high school to score some leftover lunch. This would explain his large girth.

For several years, I continued to greet him in the usual way (him giving me "five" and me giving him a milkbone, and he and Jack sniffing each others butts) until one day I stopped to see him, and the next thing I knew I was lying on my back in the road staring at the sky. Kelty jumped over me and he and Jack were having some sort of major disagreement. A neighbor came racing over with his weedwacker, ready to save me from. I convinced him not to use it on either of the dogs and yelled at Kelty. He, looking apologetic, waddled back in his yard.

After that, I would not approach Kelty when Jack was with me. I would still throw him a bone though. And if Ron was with me, we would take turns getting our "five" and giving him some words of encouragement. He never acted that way again, but Jack wasn't going to give him another chance.

After a while we didn't see Kelty outside waiting for us any more. We figured he had died because he was so old. Fourteen is pretty old for a big dog like him. We did ask one of the neighbors if he knew what happened. He told us the family moved away to a farm in the country.

So I like to imagine that Kelty had a good whatever was left of his life, wandering the fields, chasing horses and maybe going around begging from the neighbors. He was a good friend and I missed seeing him waddle on over to greet us.